Sunrise
by tdei
Summary: Response to Bjorn's Challenge #1. Anthy's contemplations after it all ends.


-Disclaimer: Utena belongs to its respective artists. This storyline is my creation though.   
  
-Genre/Story type: Angst  
  
-Series: Shoujo Kakumei Utena  
  
-Warnings: Hints of spoilers for the end of the anime series. ^^ Nothing serious or obvious though.   
  
-Author's Comments: This was Bjorn's Challenge #1, which was to write a short first-person perspective piece of a character watching a sunrise. I chose Utena. It seemed fitting (and because I was still under its effects, having watched some of it when I ran into the challenge). It took me a while to do it. I think it went well. Enjoy. ^^ Oh, and I couldn't really think of a title, so "Sunrise" it is. XD   
  
  
  
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Sunrise  
  
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I never knew trying is so hard.  
  
Chuchu's soft snoring buzzes through the quiet air. The sweet, silly thing has been asleep for a few hours now. I peek at him to check if he's all right. The sight of him, nestled in a blanket and tucked securely into my suitcase, reassures me. I close the opened pouch so I won't accidentally disturb him.   
  
He has been with me, faithfully, as always.  
  
My long, wavy hair slides in a glimmering stream of black silk along the worn and rusted steel of the unlit street lamp as I exhale a tired breath and lean my slender body against the cold cures of the stone bench I sit on.   
  
Trying to live is much more difficult than just existing.   
  
But then I was always a follower, not a leader. It is harder for me because I am unused to trying. I had been the puppet, not the puppet master.   
  
I tilt my head back and regard the lightless abyss above me with unfocused eyes. Eyes that I know would shine emerald green in the flawless surface of reflective glass. People tell me that they hold a secretive promise--my eyes lure with a seductive, ethereal mystery. I've glanced in mirrors dozens of times, but I never see what they're talking about. Then again, I never pay attention to my reflection in the mirror. I always end up staring at the shadow that hovers behind me. That faint, elusive form that shines like an enchanted rose, forgotten in a dark castle room.   
  
How long has it been since I have seen... _her_?  
  
I have been looking for her day after day for so long that they all merge into a nonsensical, continuous stream of psychedelic memories. I feel like I dream. That I live in a dream even though I can still fall asleep and dream. These perceptions are confusing. I can't tell, sometimes, what is a dream and what is real. Sometimes... sometimes I dream she was never real. That is what scares me the most--the thought that maybe... she was never real. She was just a dream.  
  
I lower my head and stare, entranced, at the flower in my hands. I slowly twirl the soft pink rose between them. The petals glow with a velvet sheen under the fading starlight. I found this rose discarded on the steps of a temple I passed by earlier this morning. Thrown away by a lover acknowledging defeat. Seeing it brings back so many memories... Memories that I've nearly begun to forget. I picked it up to hold in my hands, so I won't forget now. So that I will remember-- her.  
  
She, with her brilliant sapphire eyes that burned like intense, azure starlight, challenging my brother to defend me. She, with shimmering hair that flowed over her slender, marble shoulders, like a moonlit river of pale, shell-pink petals, flashing forward, fighting with peerless, flawless grace. She, who came from nowhere, from a time unremembered, from a past that never existed... Too good to be true. I conclude that not from arrogance, but reality.   
  
But I was wrong.  
  
She was true.  
  
She _is_ true.  
  
But is she _real_?  
  
Have I only traded one Hell for another? At least, before, I had hopes of something revolutionary. Or no hopes at all, to torment myself with. Now, I have only one hope to fulfill. An obsession that drives me now, to scour--to search--the Earth.   
  
An obsession that is my brightest blessing. An obsession that stands as my darkest curse.   
  
My eyes flicker in turmoil. I close them. Such thoughts... When have I thought such things? Since her, of course. Thinking is such a pain, but it is a pleasure too... because it is a gift from her. I lean my head back and open my eyes to the lightening sky above me. The air is cold, but it whispers soothingly as it shifts past me in a moderate wind. It caresses my cheek softly.   
  
The wind moves restlessly and stills with baited breath. The flow of night pauses; the shadows heighten and lean in one direction. I blink at the anticipation of my surroundings, suddenly registering the time. It comes.  
  
The sun.  
  
It flows over the ends of the world like a pool of molten gold, twisting, reaching toward the night like a thousand hungry wraiths seeking substance. It burns the dark and stains the sky with an endless crimson.   
  
Crimson, like the innumerable full roses of an illusory school.   
  
Scarlet, like the full skirt of a princess bride's gown.  
  
Red as the cleansing, crimson shower that rained from a million shining swords. A sea of blood. Blood that I can see, draining from her wiry body, slipping out like the sand in an hourglass, to the impersonal stretch of marble floor.   
  
Cut out by a shining blade that slipped out of her flesh like the rays of sunlight slip from the bleeding heart of that irresistible, immortal, shining orb.   
  
The red dries to royal violet before being washed away by ice blue tears, orange fire, and a fleeting spread of angelic pink.   
  
I had watched the scene fall and unfold as I now watch the sun struggle to rise and ascend.   
  
It had been the beginning of the end of me. For me.  
  
This, too, is another beginning of another day. The sun always reminds me that another world still exists. The dawn makes it real.   
  
For it is a constant no matter where one is on the Earth. It revolutionizes the night. The thought makes me smile slightly.  
  
The world bursts into radiant color, transformed, by the touch of the sun.   
  
I slide off the stone bench, letting the pastel pink bloom flutter from my hands to the muddy, dew-soaked earth. I don't need its reminder anymore, for the memories burn brightly inside me now. My hesitation is over; I resume moving again.   
  
For she is there, somewhere. The only true sun that brings day to the night I live.   
  
My Lady. My prince.  
  
The center of my universe.  
  
I will find you, Utena.   
  
  
  
*end* 


End file.
